If you want to know why gun control doesn’t work, you only need to look at one photo to see why.

The picture below, taken after the terrorist attack on a military career center in Chattanooga, captures the complete failure of the logic underlying demands for greater gun control in the U.S.:

“Federal Installation,” the top of the sign reads in black letters atop a yellow background. “Firearms Are Prohibited In This Facility.” The bullets that shattered the glass in more than a dozen places around the gun-free zone sign did not heed its commands.

In addition to ignoring the sign designating the area as a gun-free zone, the terrorist shooter also appears to have illegally obtained his firearms:

BREAKING: FBI: Man who attacked military sites in Tennessee purchased some of his guns illegally.
The Associated Press (@AP) July 17, 2015

In other words, the gun control regime not only failed to prevent the terrorist from obtaining his firearms, it also failed to prevent him from possessing them in a gun-free zone. The gun ban did, however, dissuade law-abiding Marines from carrying firearms that they could’ve used to protect themselves.

As David Harsanyi noted, gun control and gun-free zones don’t hamper violent madmen. Instead, they only encourage them. Gun-free zones are the softest of soft targets, and there’s nothing more a violent terrorist desires more than the ability to inflict the greatest amount of harm with the least amount of resistance:

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez is suspected of murdering four unarmed Marines in Chattanooga and wounding others. As I write this, we still don’t know how Abdulazeez obtained his gun or what his motivations were—though, we can take an educated guess on the latter. What we do know is that Abdulazeez shot his victims in a “gun-free zone,” which is a useful illustration of the absurdity of gun-control laws: we constrain conscientious Americans but offer free rein to killers. In this case, even our best trained warriors were helpless.

The gun-free zone sign didn’t prevent the shooter from firing a gun at completely innocent individuals within the zone. It did, however, prevent them from defending themselves. The key to stopping gun violence isn’t gun control, because this episode (along with many others) proves that gun control just doesn’t work. The key is acknowledging the God-given right of free people to defend themselves. Especially when they put their lives on the line to defend us.